One thing that I have gotten a lot better about since moving to Seattle is getting out and actually seeing some of the sights in the city.  When I think about all the stuff in California that I still haven’t seen, I get kind of sad.  But up here, I’ve at least made an effort to see SOME of the cool stuff Seattle has to offer.

I think that there are two main reasons that I’ve actually been seeing stuff around here.  First, I don’t entirely feel like Seattle is home, so I want to see as much as I can while we’re here.  Not that we have any plans to leave anytime soon, but when you ask me where I live, my first inclination is still to say “California.”  Eh, we’ll see how it turns out.

The second reason is my friend Barrie.  I have NEVER met anybody who does more stuff than Barrie.  Seriously, she is like a machine.  Not only is she a complete genius at knowing EVERYTHING that goes on within a 50-mile radius of Seattle, once she decides she wants to do something, she sets a date for it, puts it on her calendar and invites people to do said stuff with her.  For somebody as indecisive and lazy as myself, it’s all pretty damn impressive.

My knitting group has an ongoing list of stuff we want to do.  About a month ago, somebody mentioned that they wanted to ride the new Light Rail and visit the Japanese Gardens in Columbia City.  So Barrie worked her magic- she picked a date and we went.

As it turned out, not a lot of us went.  It ended up just being Barrie, myself and a new addition to our group named Elizabeth.  Still, it was a successful trip- successful in the sense that I actually found the light rail station, was only 10 minutes late getting there, and we managed to avoid buying a ticket- SCORE!

The gardens were a short 20 minute ride away and totally gorgeous.

We wandered around the garden a little longer than we intended, and realized it was starting to get a little dark by the time we headed back to the light rail.  Then we got a little bit lost trying to find the trail back to the rail (haha, that rhymed).  Now, the gardens are beautiful, but they aren’t in the best neighborhood in the city.  Pretty soon, it was 8:15, pretty damn dark outside, and we were all starting to get a little on edge.

Thankfully, just as my tension peaked, Barrie and I saw an awesome little Mexican tienda and got distracted by the colors.  We went inside and I took more pictures there than I did at the gardens.

They sold yarn!  Sure, it was super crappy acrylic shit yarn, but it was yarn none the less.

They also sold these extremely colorful cowboy boots.

Barrie pondered the refrigerated offerings and debated the differences between cotija and queso fresco.

I had to seriously talk myself out of buying this pig.  Now I kind of regret NOT getting it.  I really think that if I positioned this little darlin’ where it was the first thing I saw every morning, it would be at least as affective in combating Seasonal Affective Disorder as one of those expensive UV light therapy devices.

Once we had our fill of the tienda, we tore ourselves away and successfully made it back to the light rail unharmed.  It was an extremely entertaining way to spend a Thursday evening.